This May Concern You

I’m sitting on a interesting panel this week. My friend Shawn Edwards, a film critic for FOX 4 Kansas City, is piecing together a documentary The Movies We Love: The 25 Most Romantic Black Movies (Ever), which will premiere this summer.

Tuesday’s panel, Black Love Stories in Film: Where is the Romance?, precedes the documentary and should provide for a lively dialogue. Shawn puts it best in this column by my friend Jenee Osterheldt: “Where are the black love stories?” It’s a good lead into to that holiday that’s gonna have men lined up outside of floral stores in about a week.

The highest grossing black love film ever?

I’ve done some mulling around in recent months, trying to find answers as to why the black love story has all but disappeared from film. Really, just for my own knowledge. What overwhelmed me were the numbers. It’s just a hypothesis: But it seems like the black love film seems to have disappeared because they don’t do big money.

Most of the black romantic comedies that popped up after, say, The Best Man — there are a slew of them — seem to have a grossing peak of $30 million. The Best Man grossed around $34 million. Conversely, if you look at say, Closer — maybe my favorite film centered around relationships — you see that the studios tend to throw around more money. Closer was made on a $27 million budget and grossed nearly $115 million. Last year, The Ugly Truth, a terribly horrific film, grossed nearly $200 million on a $40 million budget.

The thing those two films have that the black ones don’t? Star power (Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler). If you think it through, the most bankable black actors rarely do films that are based around black stories. I’m don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. It’s just interesting that the last time a bankable black actor starred in a black romantic comedy was Boomerang in 1992. Guess what? It grossed $131 million on a $42 million budget…in 1992.

Yup, you can take the Taye Diggs black love film catalog (How Stella Got Her Groove Back, The Wood The Best Man and Brown Sugar), add the figures together, and it still doesn’t gross what Boomerang did. Crazy. I don’t think that says anything bad about Sanaa, Omar, Morris, Nia and friends. But it makes you wonder what would happen if Will Smith and Halle Berry did a black love film together.

But it also, I think, potentially puts in perspective why black love films aren’t flying out of Hollywood left and right like they were around the turn of the century. The potential return is too low. Idk. I wish the producers would realize that there’s still a market to be had and make more of these films.

What I do know is that this is a big part of the reason why Tyler Perry is swimming in money like he’s Scrooge McDuck these days. But that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, here are my favorite black love films (the numbers they did at the box office), the ones that I think genuinely stand the test of time.

Love Jones (1997, $10m production/$12m gross) Probably my favorite because of all of the questions that are asked and explored in the actual dialogue. I can’t stand Nina’s best friend, though. She’s the root of every problem in the film.

Boomerang 1992, ($42m/$131m). There are plenty of black men who will not date a woman with jacked up feet because of Marcus Graham’s philosophy. Feel like this is the film where Halle Berry became “Halle Berry.”

The Wood (1999, $6m/$25m). A tale of innocence and reminiscent of a childhood so many young black kids born from say 1975 to 1984 know extremely well. It really does make you long for your youth. 

Brown Sugar (2004, $8m/$28m). Compelling story of opposite sex best friends falling in love with other people and maintaining their friendship, then falling in love. I could watch the “*ting, ting* ‘My divorce!’” scene a 100 times over and laugh every time.

No rant. Just questions. Have a good weekend and enjoy the SuperBowl.

1. Who is your doppelganger, per your own eye and not what people tell you?

2. What are the first three words that come to mind when you think of Lady Gaga?

3. Saints or Colts?

4. Who is the most famous person to ever graduate from your high school?

5. What do you think of 3D effects?

I’m still scratching my head at Sunday night’s main event and trying to figure out just two specific things that happened say about the state of music.

“Single Ladies”, a song written by three men, somehow won the Grammy for Song of The Year and Taylor Swift, the winner of the Album of The Year award for Fearless, gave a performance that would have gotten her booted from American Idol’s initial auditions.

Those two things (along with hearing a lyric that said “I’m your insulin…let me be your medicine” and Quincy Jones allegedly allowing Lil Wayne to sing a piece of “We Are The World”) have caused me to wonder where in the world music is going. Better yet, what are we requiring of our artists?

I’ve given Taylor Swift’s album a good listen. Well written and thought out. Yet her performance on Sunday night stains her triumphs. The thing that authenticates so many of the artists we see as great is something Swift lacks.

But you can sorta forgive that. So much of our music has been manufactured for years that it’s hard to tell what’s authentic and what isn’t. Most artists seem to come out of a factory with little ability to create for self. At least Swift has the ability to write a good song that carries weight, tells a story and has a sincere message.

Now, before I go here, let me state this: My longstanding disdain of one Beyonce Knowles is trivial at best, stemming from the initial Destiny Child break-up which forced my Letoya out of my sight line for several years. I think Beyonce is an extremely talented vocalist, a stunning look and a great performer.

When it comes to writing and actual substance, though, I’d give her D-minuses. I’d give the song “Single Ladies” an F+, and no that’s not some I-hate-female-anthems grade. And I know I’m no expert. It’s just that when you actually put the song up against ANY of the songs that have previously won the Grammy for Song of The Year it seems laughable that this song would even draw such a prestigious nomination.

And that it actually won seems like a parody of a parody in Quincy Jones’ worst nightmare (Seriously, Quincy gave Lil Wayne a lead in “We Are The World.” Something Sunday night shook the hell out of him). There’s nothing intricate, substantive or even remotely interesting about a woman in a club telling her just cut-loose ex-boyfriend that he should have put a ring on it if he wanted it, while backing it up into some new guy who’s interested in what he sees.

THAT IS WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT.

Sure, it’s a fun record to listen to from time to time. It’s hypnotic and catchy. But, to me, it’s about as deep as “I’m your insulin, I think ya need your medicine.” It doesn’t belong anywhere near “Daughters”, “Beautiful Day”, “My Heart Will Go On”, “Kiss From A Rose”, “Every Breath You Take” or “What’s Love Got To Do With It”.

Hell, it doesn’t belong anywhere near “Pretty Wings”, “Use Somebody” or “You Belong with Me”, three songs it beat out for the song of the year. I understand that’s my opinion, but I really believe Maxwell, Kings of Leon and even Taylor Swift were sitting there wanting to pull a Kanye because they know just how undeserving that song is.

All of this makes me wonder where we’re setting the bar because it seems as if a little person couldn’t even limbo beneath it right now. At this rate, Plies might win the Grammy for Song of The Year in 2011. And when if that happens, I’m going Oedipus Rex on my ears.

Nothing major. Just a few rambling thoughts from last night’s Grammys.

1. Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” won for song of the year. I find it odd, yet ironic, that three men wrote the song.

2. I’m not a fan. But I hope hope people will get beyond this Taylor Swift/Kanye thing. It’s long over. She’s getting the attention she’s getting because she’s actually good at what she does, not because Kanye interrupted her acceptance speech at some MTV Awards show.

3. The 3D MJ Tribute was unnecessary. Why? Most people who watch the show didn’t have the glasses, and if you didn’t have them, the television forced you to the 3D takes of the performance at about 20/200. It was that blurry and took away from the performance all for the illusion of “Usher walking toward me.” I enjoyed the performance of “Earth Song,” though.

4. Prince and Paris Jackson have grown a lot since July. It was really interesting to hear them speak again and it will be intriguing to watch them as they grow, to see how much of their father actually lives in them. There matching outfits gave off just the right touch.

5. Lady Gaga needs to stop trying to push the envelope so tough. There’s a fine line between art and strange, and she borders on strange far too often. It’s the best word I can think of to describe what she often wears. The novelty of it has to wear off at some point, you’d think. It’s sorta like watching a constant sideshow.

6. Beyonce won six Grammys (three of them for “Single Ladies”). Great for her. She’s a good businesswoman and has branded the hell outta herself. Still don’t think much of her as an artist and that she took home that many awards from that album doesn’t say much for the state of R&B. “Dangerously In Love” is three times the album her latest effort is, IMO.

7. “No thanks.” Solange’s son knew his place and provide my favorite moment of the entire evening when he said he had nothing to say.

8. Am I missing something or was there not one performance that stood out as better than the rest? In fact, all of the performances just seemed … OK. The Grammys idea of fusing together artists from different genres and eras has played itself out, I think. Few, if any, of the performances end up being memorable, and I wonder if allowing more of them to have their individual moments would help.

Favre, the quarterback I love to hate. But he's great.

“You’re not George Foreman. You’re not going to win the Super Bowl with one haymaker-like Hail Mary TD pass akin to the one that floored Michael Moorer.” ~ From my open letter to Brett Favre.

Dear Brett,

At my worst, I can be fairly stubborn. Like most people, I don’t like having to admit when I’m wrong. But I don’t have much of a problem doing it. I just don’t like it.

But here goes nothing. I was wrong when I wrote this and this. More so, I was wrong specifically about your ability as a 40-year-old man (I should have spent more time listening to Mike Gundy).

You proved me and so many others wrong this season with your play. I said there was no way that you’d have the season you had considering how much you wavered just on your decision to come back and because you only wanted to play to stick it to Green Bay.

Yet, there you were Sunday evening, playing for the NFC Championship, coming within a few miscues — that last interception was classic Favre — of winning it and playing in another Super Bowl. As much as I wanted to see you fail this season it was amazing to see you succeed as much as you did.

It’s almost impossible to root against you. You are one of the game’s greats, and it’s unreal to imagine you doing what you did this season at your age and with the wear you showed at the end of last season. I didn’t think it was possible. I thought you were arrogant to believe you could come into an NFL locker room midway through training camp and lead a team deep into the playoffs. But you did.

And to think, I, along with many others, said “stay retired.” You gave it a great run. Good job. But I’m going to be real, too. I’m glad you lost. I don’t think I could have handled you winning the Super Bowl. I hate being proven completely wrong. It would have been too much.

So would you wavering — until mid August — about whether or not to play another season. Don’t play games with us again. I refuse to watch. Make a decision and stick with it. If you’re gonna jump the Viking ship, jump ship and stay in the water. If you’re going to play, make the decision before you retire and have to unretire.

No one likes Drama Queen Favre. So if you repeat what you’ve done the last two off-seasons, I’ll saddle you with more disdain next season. But it will be silent disdain because I respect your play. You’ve earned that much.

Again, I offer an apology. And rest up. You took a beating yesterday.

Sincerely,

Damon

P.S. Cicely says she’s sorry, too.